by Barry Wrafter

I won a national competition to make this statue, called Pride of Kilkenny, to celebrate the Kilkenny hurling team, known as The Cats. The Kilkenny Council that commissioned it was leaning towards having it sculpted in stone, so I made a very large and lively model of three players rising for the ball in mid-field in a classic battle pose.

The irony is that Kilkenny normally win the All Ireland Final, but this year the team known as The Banners from my home county of Clare won it – and in some style!

Several artists were invited to submit a model. Mine was larger than I would usually make  in the hope of dominating the competition for the commission.

After a few weeks I was told I was one of three artists short listed and I should go to meet the council. All they really wanted to know was if I could actually make in stone what I had modelled. I said I could. I do have a belief I can make anything, but I had my doubts about this.

I got the commission and set about scaling up the model for the carving, using a laser level to put a grid on to the model.

The stone is Kilkenny Limestone (Irish Blue limestone). The sculpture measures a monster 3.6m by 1.7m by 1.4m and I started out with a block 4m x 1.7m x 1.5m. I was going to get excess stone cut away at the quarry and used the grid measurements on the model to figure out where I was going to get slices cut from the stone.

It took several attempts to find a block of stone big enough with no cracks in it. It weighed 20 tonnes and we had to get a forklift all the way from Dublin to lift it into my workshop.

I built a water trap around the stone for wet cutting, which worked quite well. I erected scaffolding and transferred the grid from the model on to the stone. I started by stitch drilling. It took months to do because it had to be right.

Then I moved on to a hydraulic ring saw I bought specially for this project. It was my first time using one of these and to be honest it was hard to figure out how to use it – there were so many steps even to putting on the blade. But when I finally did figure it out… Wow! It was worth it. I was very impressed.

After the sawing I started with the air hammers. When Kilkenny limestone is split it goes a darker colour and I wanted to use that to create the stripes Kilkenny are famous for.

I have only just finished the sculpture and, to be frank, I would never take on anything like it again. It was way too intricate and the labour involved in making it was horrendous. I didn’t mind the physical side of it or even all the dust (I wore a respirator or was cutting wet). It was the mental pressure. It took three years to carve and for most of that time I was so aware of how much work was left to do. That’s what took its toll.

Hopefully it will be worth it end when I see it in the future. For now I cannot bear the sight of it. But I look forward to seeing it settle in. In a few years’ time I might be able to enjoy it.

What's three years of my life when it could be standing there hundreds of years. And even when that part of its future is over it will still have a presence, just as the famous statues from Greece still exert their majesty today.